'Shortage of sparks' … Condola Rashād and Orlando Bloom in Romeo and Juliet at Richard Rogers theatre in New York. Photograph: Carol Rosegg/AP

Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones – widely slated in the Old Vic's Much Ado About Nothing – may have saved him from the ignominy of the day's sharpest invective, but Orlando Bloom has received decidedly mixed reviews for Romeo and Juliet on Broadway.

"We don't get many revivals of the classic on professional stages, so it's safe to say that Bloom's swaggering, matinee-idol Romeo will be the most engaging you'll see in years," wrote Time Out's David Cote. "But this is also the least erotically charged or sexually frank Romeo and Juliet I've ever attended."

Bloom stars opposite the two-time Tony award nominee Condola Rashād in British director David Leveaux's multiracial production at Richard Rogers theatre, but the two are generally deemed a passionless match. The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney notes "the shortage of sparks between the two leads", while Ben Brantley of the New York Times argues that their "chemistry is less erotic than aesthetic".

At 36, Bloom is older than past Romeos and it's a point few critics fail to observe – some with more glee than others. Cote describes his Romeo as "a slightly older hipster", dressed in ripped jeans and maroon Dr Martins, though Rooney contends that "his boyish prettiness serves the role well". Nonetheless, the actor's first entrance – on a motorbike – is almost universally ridiculed: "It's a relief when the thing chugs off into the wings," writes the Telegraph's Tom Wicker.

However, Bloom can count a very powerful backer in the New York Times's Brantley, who dubs his performance "a first-rate Broadway debut".

"Mr Bloom, famous for being handsomely heroic in the Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises, keeps surprising," he continues. "For once, we have a Romeo who evolves substantively, from a posturing youth in love with love to a man who discovers the startling revelation of real love, with a last-act descent into bilious, bitter anger that verges on madness."

The New York Daily News is less enthusiastic. "He's just fine," writes Joe Dziemianowicz. "No more, no less."